Rethinking my Ambition

       Today was one of those fabulous days for me. You know, those days when you wake up feeling well rested and your perception of the birds chirping early in the morning is a serenade from a lover, with every chirp rhythmically in tune with your own happiness. Well yea, I woke up feeling that fabulous. I had decided the previous day that I would run errands I had put off because they involved the Department of Motor Vehicles and Tax Assessor. Yuk!

       On my way to go pay my taxes I took a wrong turn and ended up in Mystic; down the road from my grandfather, whom I owed a visit. I was happy to go visit, of course, since my day was going so well but also, because I had spoken with my brother about developing a plan to get my grandfather to participate in his occupational therapy sessions. (OT's and OTA's everywhere, I think you’re fabulous if that's a job you love doing and do well!!) He had lost all motivation to get out of bed or leave the nursing home. While in there and conversing with him, he kept forgetting important details of his life and eventually showed some frustration. Not very noticeable frustration, it was just enough that only someone who knew him well, would be able to tell. He gave his forehead a self-correcting, affirmative tap and said "this brain of mine, my memory is not very good anymore."

       I showed my understanding and moved on with the conversation to not dwell on negativity. We began to speak about everyone in the family and refresh his memory on who's who and how everyone is doing. On the third time of patiently reminding him I was married, we spoke of my husband’s job which involves a very complicated process of measuring water, I said, while laughing, that he measures molecules. He found that funny as well and said, while pointing in the air, "O look there goes one now!" 
       We laughed. I enjoyed this because, well first, laughter is good medicine. Second, I am kind of still trying to figure out what a molecule actually is. He then calmly goes on to say, "I am losing all of that." I said "all of what, chemistry?" He replied, "Everything, everything I learned. I have nothing left." I then question, "So, what do you have?" He says, while throwing his arms in the air, both hands pointing forward at whatever show had been muted, "The TV!" The TV was all he had left?! 

       My heart was crushed. To give you a background, he has a Doctorate in Engineering and while he may not have the most honorable past, he is a very intelligent individual, with his father being a doctor, as well, but in the medical field. Usually we talk about how he got his Doctorate and how he worked for MIT to pay his college tuition. This time we didn't get that far because after my heart was crushed, we were interrupted by a quite outspoken nurse who was bringing in lunch.

       While I was thinking, he was eating, and I was thinking, "Is this what we do? We gain knowledge for it to be wasted away by old age?" In that moment, I couldn't let the conversation go. I had one more question. I asked "Is this where you started? Watching TV?" He didn't understand the question, so I restated, "Did you watch a lot of TV as a child?" He told me TV didn't come out till after he was born. 

My though was that, maybe it was his circle of life. Maybe, he is comfortable with this situation because this was what his family did growing up. Which, I suppose, would have relieved me for a moment but I don’t really know where I was going with it.

       I had to take action. He's a doctor, who went to MIT and worked diligently at Electric Boat, earning a chair which he sat in to play Minesweeper and Mathematica for hours a day. Then the poem I had posted a while back, "Do not go gentle into that good night" rushed into my brain. Was I being selfish? Am I just not allowing him to age? Shaking my head at that thought, I say to myself, “I am assured, he isn’t dying.”

I wouldn't have that. I stood with pride and told him about the plan to get him a laptop and marched right up to the nurse’s station to execute my plan. She was sweet, I was determined and we had a plan. The plan was recorded. I walked back, feeling in control, to his room to let him know the therapists will be calling me. They will be talking to him about earning the computer. He looked at me and said, "O no” stressing and elongating the o like it would buy him time. “What trouble have I gotten myself in?" 
       I asked him if he wanted pictures of the family hung up in his room and ever so intently, he closed his eyes tight with passion, put his hand on his heart and says "they're right here." 

       This did appease my thinking, he doesn't only have TV; he also has his heart and whether he forgets my name or the MIT education he worked so hard for, I am in there. We are in there. So yes, now I question my ambition. Should I be fighting so hard for knowledge that will be lost from old age? Should I be so worried about getting an A that I forget the time that has passed while I was away from my family? The same family my grandfather has tucked away in his heart. These are questions I will be asking myself over the next few weeks or maybe years.